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User blog:GlitterInformer/Doki Doki! Pretty Cure/Glitter Force Doki Doki SDC: Episode 23 (Sub), 17 (Dub)
Episode 22 (Sub), 16 (Dub) | Table of Contents | Episode 24 (Sub), 18 (Dub) Japanese title: “Take Back the Love! Pretty Cure’s 5 Oaths!” English title: “First Rule of Glitter Force!" Welcome back everybody. Last time on Doki Doki! Pretty Cure/''Glitter Force Doki Doki'', Heart did a very bad thing. She refused to perform a perfectly harmless procedure on her friend Regina in order to break her free of her brainwashing. Now, with nothing else stopping Regina from killing our four main characters, it’s up to the random new kid from nowhere, Cure/Glitter Ace, to put a stop to this mess. We start with two different recaps, one for the sub and one for the dub. The sub’s is just a twelve-second reprise of the ending of episode 22. The dub’s is quite a bit longer and is a whole-episode recap narrated by Maya. Here’s the sub recap: DD23 01 japanese recap 1.png|Regina: "Who are YOU!?" DD23 02 japanese recap 2.png|Cure Ace: "The trump card of love!" DD23 03 japanese recap 3.png|Cure Ace: "Cure Ace!" And here’s the dub recap: DD23 04 english recap 1.png|Maya: "Maya here!" DD23 05 english recap 2.png|Maya: "Just when we finally made a friend of our ex-enemy, Regina..." DD23 06 english recap 3.png DD23 07 english recap 4.png|Maya: "...her mean old dad appeared, snatched her away..." DD23 08 english recap 5.png|Maya: "...and zapped her full of this dark energy stuff!" DD23 09 english recap 6.png DD23 10 english recap 7.png DD23 11 english recap 8.png|Maya: "Now, she's our deadly enemy again..." DD23 12 english recap 9.png DD23 13 english recap 10.png|Maya: "...and she wants to destroy us more than ever!" DD23 14 english recap 11.png|Maya: "But if we've lost a friend..." DD23 15 english recap 12.png|Maya: "...it looks like we may have gained a new ally!" DD23 16 english recap 13.png|Maya: "At least, I think she's an ally." After the sub’s quick recap, it shows the opening theme and the title card. Then, we cut right to where we left off. Everyone’s understandably shocked to see Big Red here. Not even Dabi/Davi recognizes her. When Regina looks at Ace, she gets a weird and uncomfortable feeling in her heart. Therefore, she blasts another laser at her. The laser hitting the cliff behind Ace and slicing it in half is darkened. DD23 17 japanese cliff 1.png DD23 18 english cliff 1.png DD23 19 japanese cliff 2.png|Mana: *gasps* DD23 20 english cliff 2.png|Maya: *gasps* Regina thinks she’s gotten Ace, but to no surprise, she hasn’t. It would be anticlimactic for the new kid to die as soon as she’s introduced. Instead, Ace jumps away from Regina’s aim and lands right next to her so hard that she forms a huge crater in the sand. Then, we get some EPIC FIGHTING at long last! Regina and Ace have a cool fight involving punching, dodging, and laser beams. It’s well animated and it shows how awesome Ace’s fighting is. She dodges all of Regina’s attacks without a sweat and counters with effective physical attacks of her own. The dub adds some dialogue here. As Glitter Ace dodges Regina’s laser, she says, “Wrong way again.” Then, as Regina attacks her, she shouts, “You sneaky snake! Take that!” Ace throws Regina into the sand. Then, Cure Ace says that it’ll only take a second to finish Regina off, while Glitter Ace says that Regina needs to be taught a lesson. With this, we get Ace’s first attack: Ace Shot. Ace puts a Cure Lovies/Glitter Charm into her quasi-DS device. Glitter Ace says, “Insert Glitter Charm!” as she does this. Then, a red laser comes out of the device’s mirror and becomes a giant tube of lipstick. This is darkened. Also, dialogue is added where Glitter Ace says, “Activate Glitter Sparkle Stick!” DD23 21 japanese ace shot 1.png DD23 22 english ace shot 1.png DD23 23 japanese ace shot 2.png DD23 24 english ace shot 2.png DD23 25 japanese ace shot 3.png DD23 26 english ace shot 3.png Name Change: Cure Ace’s lipstick weapon is called the Love Kiss Rouge. Glitter Ace’s, as you’ve probably already guessed, is the Glitter Sparkle Stick. Not only is the dub name cheesy, but it’s redundant because “glitter” and “sparkle” are synonyms. After forming the Love Kiss Rouge, Cure Ace says, “Give me color! Love Kiss Rouge!” Glitter Ace instead says, “You ready for it? Apply shades of victory!” which makes little sense because Ace is using lipstick, not eyeshadow. Though I guess she could mean “shades” as in the color of the lipstick… The Love Kiss Rouge/Glitter Sparkle Stick glows red and Ace uses it to put lipstick on… even though she already has clearly visible lipstick that doesn’t seem to be fading. Anyway, Ace blows a kiss, which causes a giant, red heart to appear in front of her. Cure Ace is silent as she blows the kiss; Glitter Ace says, “Mwah!” Cure Ace says, “Please let your heart throb! Ace Shot! Boom!” Glitter Ace says, “Guaranteed to make any heart go all a-flutter! Ace Shot… Boom!” As Ace says this, she uses the Love Kiss Rouge/Glitter Sparkle Stick to fire a red beam. The beam is darkened in the dub. DD23 27 japanese ace shot 4.png|Cure Ace: "Boom!" DD23 28 english ace shot 4.png|Glitter Ace: "Ace Shot... Boom!" DD23 29 japanese ace shot 5.png DD23 30 english ace shot 5.png DD23 31 japanese ace shot 6.png DD23 32 english ace shot 6.png DD23 33 japanese ace shot 7.png DD23 34 english ace shot 7.png DD23 35 japanese ace shot 8.png DD23 36 english ace shot 8.png DD23 37 japanese ace shot 9.png|Cure Ace: *GRUNTS* DD23 38 english ace shot 9.png|Glitter Ace: *GRUNTS* Ace Shot hits Regina. For some reason, the attack causes her to scream in pain. You know, now that I think about it, maybe Heart wasn’t so stupid when she refused to use Lovely Force Arrow/Togetherness Power Arrow on Regina. There was one other time when her attack caused pain to a person. It was in episode 7->6, when Heart used My Sweet Heart/Let Your Heart Light Shine on Bel. Mana/Maya is extremely concerned for Regina and calls out her name. Then, the dub shows the opening theme. After this, we cut back to the beach, where Regina collapses and has to be carried by Bel. Mana/Maya walks up to her and demands to know if she’s okay. She begs Bel not to take her away. In the dub, Maya also asks Regina to snap out of it because she belongs with the Glitter Force. Much to Mana/Maya’s anguish, Regina is even angrier than before. In the sub, Regina shouts that she’ll never forgive Pretty Cure; in the dub, Regina shouts that she never wants to see the Glitter Force again and tells Bel to get her away from them. Mana/Maya falls to the ground and bursts into tears while her friends come over to comfort her. Mana sobs wordlessly; Maya says that it can’t end like this. Ace then sternly tells Mana/Maya to stop crying and get on her feet because crying won’t bring Regina back. This gets Rikka/Rachel, Makoto/Mackenzie, and Arisu/Clara mad because Ace is being really insensitive to Mana/Maya’s feelings. Ace doesn’t react to their anger. Instead, Cure Ace says that there are five oaths of Pretty Cure and that the first is that a Pretty Cure always looks to the future. Glitter Ace says that the first rule of the Glitter Force is that a Glitter Force warrior must keep moving forward and never succumb to despair. Mana/Maya can’t bring herself to follow Ace’s advice, though. She just keeps on crying, so Ace says that she has no choice but to take her transformation Cure Lovies/Glitter Charm until she’s ready to be a Pretty Cure/Glitter Force warrior again. Then, she leaps off into the distance and out of sight. Rikka/Rachel is angry because Mana/Maya isn’t doing anything wrong by just crying and Ace didn’t have any right to steal her Lovies/Charm like that. But Mana/Maya, still in tears, thinks that Ace is right and that she doesn’t deserve to be a Pretty Cure/Glitter Force warrior. Back in the Trump Kingdom/Splendorius, Regina is in a bubble that is either near or inside King Jikochuu/Mercenare. She’s screaming and appears to be in great pain. In the sub, it isn’t explained why Regina is still screaming; in the dub, dialogue is added where Regina says she’s so mad at the Glitter Force that she wants to scream, but her screams seem more agonized than angry. King Jikochuu/Mercenare uses his powers to put Regina to sleep. He then asks Ira, Marmo, and Bel who Ace is. Bel says they don’t know, but that she’s a formidable opponent. Then, two new villains appear. One is a lean guy with long-ish hair, lipstick, and a top hat. The other is a gigantic, gluttonous man with fangs. In the sub, the shorter man calls Bel “Bel-chan”. “-chan” is an honorific added to the end of a name, usually that of a young girl. This gets Bel angry. In the dub, the newcomer instead calls Bel a wimp, which garners the same reaction. Oh, and in the sub, we find out that the short guy’s name is Leva. The two new guys mock the trio for not even destroying one word yet when they’ve already destroyed three. In the sub, Ira says that the worlds the duo destroyed probably only had monkeys on them; in the dub, Ira asks if the duo didn’t just make up those three worlds. The big man threatens to eat Ira and Ira says he’d like to see him try. King Jikochuu/Mercenare interrupts the argument by shouting at them to shut up and summoning a threatening bolt of lightning. Then, we find out the two new guys’ names, which are both changed in the dub. Name Change: In the sub, the short guy is named Leva and the tall guy is called Gula. In the dub, the short guy is Riva and the tall guy is Gura. To be fair, this isn’t very much of a name change, as the sub names are pronounced “Riva” and “Gura” when pronounced in a Japanese accent. However, Leva is named after the Leviathan, a demon that represents envy, and Gula’s name comes from gula, the Latin word for “gluttony”. That’s how we infer the spelling of their names. King Jikochuu/Mercenare tells Leva/Riva and Gula/Gura to deal with Pretty Cure/the Glitter Force. The two agree, and Ira, Marmo, and Bel are angry at being upstaged. When the original trio is shown, the dub adds dialogue where King Mercenare says that they’ve been a disappointment. This line feels tacked onto the conversation just so that the kids don’t have to endure a split second of silence. He’s like, “Riva and Gura, you take care of things,” and then without even a pause, he’s like, “I’m very disappointed in you three.” We cut to some sort of festival. Well, we cut to it in the dub; in the original Japanese version, there’s a fade to black and then to the festival. It’s the opposite of what usually happens. In the sub, it’s a shopping district festival; in the dub, it’s a street fair. A sign’s text is edited. DD23 39 japanese sign 1.png|Ōgai Shopping District Festival DD23 40 english sign 1.png|Sea Shell Bay Street Fair A pan over several signs with Japanese text is removed. DD23 41 cut signs 1.png|Takoyaki Takoyaki ¥600 Special Large Serving In the background, a red and white striped banner has illegible yellow text removed. DD23 42 japanese sign 2.png DD23 43 english sign 2.png The booth with the removed text is being manned by Mana/Maya’s parents, who are making hot dogs. A sign from the front of the booth is removed. DD23 44 japanese sign 3.png|Frankfurters ¥350 DD23 45 english sign 3.png Rikka/Rachel and Makoto/Mackenzie get hot dogs from Mana/Maya’s parents. Makoto/Mackenzie asks how Mana/Maya is doing. Her mother tells her that she’s been in her room since yesterday and that she hasn’t come out. In the sub, she says she hasn’t been eating either. Mana/Maya’s dad asks the two girls if she had a fight with Regina. Rikka says it wasn’t exactly a fight (even though it was); Rachel says that Maya’s dad isn’t really wrong. Makoto/Mackenzie says that she’s sure Mana/Maya will cheer up eventually. This makes Mana/Maya’s dad happier. He’s comforted that she has such good friends. When Rikka/Rachel and Makoto/Mackenzie sit down to eat their hot dogs, Rikka/Rachel is still concerned about Mana/Maya. Raquel/Rory and Dabi/Davi say that it’s expected for Mana/Maya to be upset. After all, Regina turned on her and Ace stole her Cure Lovies/Glitter Charm. Rikka/Rachel wonders who exactly Ace is. Just then, Arisu/Clara and Sebastian pop in. They’re also flummoxed about Ace. Even with all their practically infinite resources, they still don’t have any information about her. Before they can talk about it any further, they notice Mana/Maya’s grandfather carrying boxes down the stairs. When the girls ask what’s in the boxes, he says he wants to sell some things at the fair today. Mana/Maya promised to help, but she’s locked herself in her room. Thus, Rikka/Rachel and Arisu/Clara offer to help in her stead. After some hesitation, Makoto/Mackenzie agrees to help, too. In the dub, dialogue is added where Rikka/Rachel and Arisu/Clara express their happiness at having Makoto/Mackenzie helping them. Up until now, Makoto/Mackenzie has been wearing glasses. This has had a Clark Kent effect where because of the glasses, nobody except for Makoto/Mackenzie’s friends recognize her. When she takes off her glasses, though, all of her fans notice her and flock on over to buy the Aida family’s stuff. I was beginning to think the writers had forgotten that Makoto/Mackenzie was a celebrity. We haven’t seen any of her celebrity work for almost 10 episodes at this point. Also, in the dub, the crowd is surprisingly quiet, though the individual members who have lines are better acted and have better dialogue. Mana/Maya’s grandfather is happy to see all the smiling people. In the sub, Rikka and Arisu are determined to help make the festival great for Mana’s sake; in the dub, Rachel and Clara say that Maya must have gotten her doki doki from her grandfather. Meanwhile, in her room, Mana/Maya has the curtains drawn tight. She can’t help but imagine Regina hanging out in her room, doing things like drawing a picture of the two of them and trying on Mana/Maya’s backpack. Mana/Maya also has a vision of Regina lying on a pillow. In the sub, imaginary Regina says that the pillow smells like Mana; in the dub, she says that she loves spending time with Maya. Mana/Maya then remembers Regina shouting that she hates Pretty Cure/the Glitter Force and gets even sadder. Sharuru/Kippie then comes in with a sandwich and says that Mana/Maya has to eat something or she’ll get sick. Mana/Maya refuses it, so Sharuru/Kippie tells Mana/Maya to get it together because she’s a Pretty Cure/Glitter Force warrior. Mana starts to say that she’s no longer a Pretty Cure; Maya says that she’s not strong. Suddenly, Mana/Maya and Sharuru/Kippie hear Ai/Dina’s voice and the house glows. Mana/Maya gets out of bed to see what happened when her mother comes in with Ai/Dina. She wants Mana/Maya to take care of the baby, much to Mana/Maya’s shock. The sub shows the eyecatches, and then Mana/Maya’s mom leaves Ai/Dina in her daughter’s care despite her protests. Much to Mana/Maya’s confusion, her mom says that Ai/Dina is Mana/Maya’s little sister, so of course she has to take care of her. Mana/Maya thinks that when Ai/Dina made the house glow, she used her magic to make her family think that she was her sister. This is starting to get really creepy. So far, Ai/Dina has been doing things like levitating things, changing the shape of smoke clouds, and summoning miracles to help Pretty Cure/the Glitter Force. Now, she can alter people’s thoughts. She can change their entire identities. How does anyone in this universe even know if their memories are real or if they’re just made up by Ai/Dina? And with such unlimited power, how will Ai/Dina not become corrupt, spoiled, or evil? If she gets punished, she could alter people’s memories so they forget she did anything bad. If she wants to be friends with somebody, she could make them believe they’ve always been friends with her. If she really wants to hurt somebody, she can get rid of all of their memories and leave them a powerless husk. Absolute power corrupts absolutely! Sharuru/Kippie panics but is then interrupted when Ai/Dina says Mana/Maya’s name. In the dub, this is her first word other than “Dina”. Hearing Ai/Dina say her name for the first time cheers Mana/Maya up. Then, much to Mana/Maya’s delight, Ai/Dina says her first sentence. Ai says, “Mana… Aida… together~kyupi!”; Dina says, “Maya… Dina… happy happy!” Ai/Dina then uncurls her hand, revealing a Cure Lovies/Glitter Charm with a trumpet on it. Mana/Maya uses it on Sharuru/Kippie, summoning a horn. Ai/Dina uses this charm and says (in stunted, incomplete baby-sentences) for Mana/Maya to cheer up. Mana/Maya is moved to tears because Ai/Dina did all this just to make her feel better. At long last, Mana/Maya leaves the house along with Sharuru/Kippie and Ai/Dina to go see the festival. Japanese text is removed from signs. DD23 46 japanese signs 4.png|Ice DD23 47 english signs 4.png DD23 48 japanese signs 5.png|Corn Tropical Juice DD23 49 english signs 5.png|Lemonade Smoothies More Japanese text is cut. DD23 50 cut signs 2.png|Corn Ice Ice Mana/Maya admires the lively scenery and says that Regina would have loved it. Then, she sees Regina in her usual red bow and runs after her. A bunch more Japanese signs are edited. DD23 51 japanese sign 6.png|Super rest is obscured DD23 52 english sign 6.png|Seafood DD23 53 japanese sign 7.png|Special Grilled Squid Special DD23 54 english sign 7.png|Calamari DD23 55 japanese signs 8.png|Choco-Bananas Corn Tropical Juice DD23 56 english signs 8.png|Choco Banana Lemonade Smoothies DD23 57 japanese signs 9.png|Yakisoba DD23 58 english signs 9.png|Sushi Mana/Maya doesn’t see Regina anywhere even after she chases her, so she chides herself for following a delusion. I didn’t know Mana/Maya had schizophrenia, because I don’t think depression causes hallucinations. Anyway, a young, brown-haired girl suddenly speaks up. In the sub, she asks how long Mana is going to stay slouched over; in the dub, she says that Maya still hasn’t learned her lesson. The girl seems to be younger than Mana/Maya. In the sub, she sure sounds like it; in the dub, she sounds like a teenager instead of a pre-pubescent girl. Before Mana/Maya can stop her, Ai/Dina flies into the girl’s arms. She isn’t surprised at all by a flying baby and instead happily hugs her. Then, the girl gets stern and says that Mana/Maya will lose something very important if she doesn’t stop acting so sullen. Also, the girl somehow knows Mana/Maya’s identity. In the sub, she calls her Mana Aida; in the dub, she calls her Glitter Heart. We cut to Makoto/Mackenzie, who is still helping out Mana/Maya’s grandfather. Two young men come up to her and ask for her autograph. They seem to be either really late in their adolescence or full-grown adults, but in the sub, one of them has a distractingly high voice. He’s voiced by a woman and sounds 10 years younger than he’s supposed to. A random guy off the street would have done a more convincing job. DB/Davi turns the men down because Makoto/Mackenzie is busy. This makes them both sad and causes darkness to form in their Psyches/hearts. They take it pretty easily, though, and are happy that they at least got to meet her. But that’s not enough to protect them from Leva/Riva and Gula/Gura. Leva/Riva extracts the mens’ Psyches/hearts, and Gula/Gura turns them into a marker Jikochuu/Distain and a paper Jikochuu/Distain. The marker Jikochuu/Distain squirts the crowds with ink and the paper Jikochuu/Distain blows them away with a giant sheet of paper. Sebastian orders the crowd to run away. As they do so, Rikka/Rachel, Arisu/Clara, and Makoto/Mackenzie transform. The whole sequence isn’t shown; only the beginning is. Sword/Spade asks who the new guys are. Leva/Riva and Gula/Gura introduce themselves. Leva/Riva then throws his top hat at the girls. They dodge and the top hat cuts a tree behind them in half. Gula/Gura lunges toward Diamond and tries to bite her. Rosetta/Clover blocks him using Rosetta/Clover reflection, but the protection doesn’t last long because Gula/Gura eats the shield. Then, Leva/Riva, Gula/Gura, and the Jikochuu/Distains all attack at once, surrounding the three warriors. In the sub, there’s no dialogue but for the Jikochuu saying, “Jiko jiko jiko jiko jiko…”; in the dub, Glitter Spade tells the other two to regroup, the marker Distain says that they love the Glitter Force’s work, and the paper Distain says that their outfits “are to die for”. We cut back to Mana/Maya and the mystery girl. Mana/Maya wonders who she is when Sharuru/Kippie just now senses the Jikochuu/Distains. She uses her phone functionality to make a live audio broadcast of the other three warriors getting their butts kicked. In the sub, the broadcast starts with Cure Sword saying that Sparkle Sword doesn’t work; in the dub, it starts with the Distains saying, “Distain!” After the recording stops, Mana/Maya hesitates. In the sub, there’s a long period of silence; in the dub, dialogue is added where Kippie says she lost the connection and asks what they should do. Mana/Maya decides to join the others even though she doesn’t have the Cure Lovies/Glitter Charm she needs to transform. Before she heads off, she thanks the girl for helping her realize that by being so caught up in her own despair, she lost sight of what was really important: protecting all of her friends, not just Regina. As she runs off and Ai/Dina follows her, the young girl smiles. At the scene of the battle, Diamond, Rosetta/Clover, and Sword/Spade are getting beaten up very hard. They refuse to give up, but it’s clear that the bad guys have the upper hand. The marker Jikochuu/Distain is about to finish them off when Mana/Maya comes in. She screams at the Jikochuu/Distain so hard that it’s blown back. So Mana/Maya has superhuman powers even while not transformed? Or is this just cartoon logic? The others are worried about Mana/Maya, but she’s still determined to fight even as a civilian. When the marker Jikochuu/Distain shoots ink at her, she picks up an umbrella and blocks it. She then rapidly turns the umbrella, causing the ink sprayed onto it to be reflected onto the paper Jikochuu/Distain’s face. The paper Jikochuu/Distain isn’t happy about this, and the two Jikochuu/Distians get into a fight. The young girl then appears before the four teammates. She congratulates Mana/Maya, calling her by her civilian name and by her Pretty Cure/Glitter Force title. The girl then asks her what the first oath/rule of Pretty Cure/the Glitter Force is, and Mana/Maya responds exactly the way Ace had told her earlier. This makes Diamond realize that this young girl was Ace all along. The girl returns Mana/Maya’s Cure Lovies/Glitter Charm and asks if she’s ready to finish the fight. Mana/Maya definitely is, and she transforms. Unlike with her three teammates, this transformation sequence is shown almost in its entirety. Mana/Maya does her catchphrase as usual. This time, after she says it, she glows with a pink, fiery aura, much to Diamond’s shock. Leva/Riva and Gula/Gura are unintimidated. In the sub, Leva tells the marker Jikochuu to color Cure Heart’s face black and the girl sarcastically asks if they can really do that. In the dub, Riva sarcastically says that he’s so scared now that there’s four of them and the girl says that he forgot one of them. The girl tells Ai/Dina to join her. The baby does so, and we finally get to see Ace’s transformation sequence! In the sub, she initiates it by saying, “Pretty Cure Dress Up!” (unlike the other girls’ “Pretty Cure Love Link!”); in the dub, she says, “Glitter Force Makeover!” just like everyone else. Ai/Dina uses her bib to summon the DS thing from last episode. Ai says, “Kyupirappa!” as she always does when using her magic; Dina says, “Dina dina!” and laughs. The Royal Crystals are already inside the device, so all the girl has to do is put in her Cure Lovies/Glitter Charm. In the dub, she says, “Insert Glitter Charm!” as she does this. Then, a stylus pops out. She draws on her eyelids with it, which causes eyeshadow to magically appear. In the dub, the girl says “Apply shades of victory!” as the pen flies out and “Yeah!” as the eyeshadow appears. The heart-shaped mirror on the device blinks twice and a bow comes out of it, just like the center lights on the other girls’ fairies. Like the others, the girl says, “Glitter Bow!” in the dub. In a flash of light, the girl becomes a silhouette. Then, a burst of fire appears and engulfs the girl, aging her up. From the fire, Ace’s boots, skirt, and brooch appear. In the dub, the whole fiery bit is darkened. Dialogue is added as shown below. DD23 59 cure ace transformation 1.png DD23 60 glitter ace transformation 1.png|"Feel the fiery energy!" DD23 61 cure ace transformation 2.png DD23 62 glitter ace transformation 2.png DD23 63 cure ace transformation 3.png DD23 64 glitter ace transformation 3.png DD23 65 cure ace transformation 4.png DD23 66 glitter ace transformation 4.png|"Glitter Boots!" DD23 67 cure ace transformation 5.png DD23 68 glitter ace transformation 5.png|"Glitter Brooch!" DD23 69 cure ace transformation 6.png DD23 70 glitter ace transformation 6.png The darkening stops when Ace’s cuffs appear. Ace’s hair grows out and turns red and her bow and jacket appears, all in bursts of flame. The fire is tinted green, but that’s actually typical for the show. The entire show has a color filter over it so that all instances of bright yellow are tinted a bit. Because of this, I’m only going to screenshot instances of tinting that go beyond normal. As Ace’s cuffs appear, Glitter Ace says, “Glitter Cuffs!”, and when her bow appears, she says, “Glitter time!” Then, Ace does her catchphrase while drawing a fiery “A” in the air and striking a pose. Cure Ace’s catchphrase is, “The trump card of love! Cure Ace!”, which is exactly her first line last episode. Glitter Ace’s catchphrase is, “’A’ for absolutely fabulous! I’m Glitter Ace!” All in all, Ace has a really good transformation sequence – well in the sub, anyway, because the dub has cringeworthy added dialogue as usual. The animation is fluid and complex and the visual effects look really cool. There’s no doubt that Ace has the best transformation in the season by far. Oh, and Ace has her own catchphrase for after the transformation! This is probably the only time we’ll ever hear it because Heart is the only one who gets to say hers more than once in the entire show. Cure Ace’s is, “Beauty is the proof of justice! I shall pierce your heart with a single wink!” Glitter Ace’s is, “Enemies of justice, beware! I always bring my A-game, and in war, just like cards, nothing beats an ace.” Also, Ace makes an A with her hands, kind of like the others made (or still make, in Heart’s case) their card suit symbol with their hands. After transforming, Ace invites Heart to attack the Jikochuu/Distains alongside her. The fight quality then improves. The paper Jikochuu/Distain shoots sheets of paper at Heart and Ace, which they dodge. Heart then pelts the marker Jikochuu/Distain with rapid-fire kicks. They look cool, but the Jikochuu/Distain takes them with no visible negative effect, pushes Heart away, and shoots ink at her that she has to dodge. In the sub, as the Jikochuu pushes Heart away, it shouts “Pleease~!” as if asking them for an autograph; in the dub, the Distain instead says that the pen is mightier than the foot. Ace slides towards the paper Jikochuu/Distain and then blows it far away just by lightly touching it. A shot of Ace’s foot sliding is darkened. Also, dialogue is added where the Distain says, “Now I got ya!” as it tries to attack Ace, “Huh?” as Ace touches it, and screams as it’s pushed away. DD23 71 cure ace 1.png DD23 72 glitter ace 1.png The Jikochuu/Distain is pushed right into Gula/Gura, knocking him over. Meanwhile, Heart attacks the marker Jikochuu/Distain. She jumps on top of it, but it ejects its marker tip, making Heart jump off of it. She was counting on this. On the ground, Heart kicks the Jikochuu/Distain’s feet right from under it, tripping the monster. When the Jikochuu/Distain is down, Heart kicks it right at Leva/Riva. He dodges, and the Jikochuu/Distain ends up hitting the other Jikochuu/Distain, and Gula/Gura by extension. The two then finish the battle. Ace purifies the paper Jikochuu/Distain with Ace Shot and Heart purifies the marker Jikochuu/Distain with Heart Shoot/Shot. I just realized that the two attacks end with the same word in the dub. Some sacrifices must be made in order to preserve grammar… As the men’s Psyches/hearts re-enter their bodies, Leva/Riva and Gula/Gura promise Ace that the next fight won’t be so easy. They then teleport away. In the dub, dialogue is added where Glitter Ace says that villains always say that. And yeah, they do, actually. It’s easier to count the Pretty Cure villains who don’t say, “It won’t be that easy next time!” after they lose their first fight. At least Leva/Riva and Gula/Gura didn’t pull an, “I was going easy on you this time.” If you really want to defeat somebody, why the heck would you go easy on them and risk your evil overlord’s wrath?? Diamond (who is somehow magically free of the ink stains she got earlier) tearfully hugs Heart. She’s delighted to see that her friend is no longer miserable. Heart apologizes for leaving them behind during her short-lived depression, but Rosetta/Clover and Sword/Spade are just happy that she’s fine now. Ace then tells the other four warriors that there’s no time to celebrate, as their training has only begun. She says that they have a lot of work before they become as good as her. Then, summoning a burst of rose petals, she bids them farewell with a smile. I guess I should mention that in the sub, Cure Ace says, “Adieu” whenever she leaves the other girls. It’s French for “goodbye”, but I think that “adieu” is generally only used when you’ll never see somebody again. Usually when French people say goodbye, they say, “au revoir” (“goodbye”), “à bientôt” (see you soon), and “à tout à l’heure” (“see you later”). The episode ends with Heart, Diamond, Rosetta/Clover, and Sword/Spade looking on as Ace leaves. In the sub, Cure Heart and Cure Rosetta wonder who Cure Ace is, exactly; in the dub, Glitter Heart says that Glitter Ace didn’t say goodbye and Glitter Clover says that Glitter Ace might need a “glitter hug.” Overall: This was a fine episode. I like how the physical fights are back and a lot better animated than a lot of the fights have been recently. I also enjoyed seeing Mana/Maya moving on from Regina getting brainwashed into betraying her. Oh, and Ace was super classy and cool. I look forward to seeing more from her. I did have a few problems. The first was that Diamond, Rosetta/Clover, and Sword/Spade were completely useless this episode. A de-transformed Mana/Maya was more powerful than them. It rubbed me the wrong way, especially since the whole Regina arc means that Mana/Maya has been getting a lot more focus than her three friends. Though one could justify Heart’s extra power as coming from that mysterious pink aura that she unlocked upon following Ace’s advice and moving on even in the face of despair. And since next episode will focus on Makoto/Mackenzie, maybe she’ll become more powerful next time. The second problem is that even though Ace is really cool, she was also unjustified in taking Mana/Maya’s Cure Lovies/Glitter Charm away. I get that Heart was acting unbefitting for a Pretty Cure/Glitter Force warrior, but that Lovies/Charm is her property and Ace shouldn’t have control over it. Also, although Ace had a point in telling Mana/Maya not to wallow in her despair, she had every right to burst into tears upon seeing Regina turn against her. Ace’s stern disapproval of her crying only made matters worse, and the more sympathetic approach that the other three, as well as Ai/Dina, took was what really got Mana/Maya out of her stupor. It would have been a lot better for the narrative if Ace had taken Mana/Maya’s Lovies/Charm away after she had locked herself in her room for a day, not right when Mana/Maya started showing signs of being sad. Ultimately, Ace may be awesome, but she’s also morally lacking. The third and final problem I had is that Leva/Riva and Gula/Gura are pretty lackluster villains so far. At least Bel was cool and threatening, and Ira is very well acted in both versions, but these two are as bland as Marmo is. The only notable thing about them is that they’re more powerful than the original three and that Gula/Gura eats anything. Hopefully they get more character development as time goes on. It would suck if Regina had to pick up the slack for everyone else in terms of being interesting. Next episode: Makoto/Mackenzie quits being an idol! Category:Blog posts